


Snow Days Together

by strawberryschaos



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Allusion To/Mention Of Smut, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gender-Neutral Apprentice (The Arcana), Male Pronouns for Asra (The Arcana), POV First Person, Romance, Snow Day, Snowed In, the arcana - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryschaos/pseuds/strawberryschaos
Summary: Asra and his apprentice find themselves forced to take a day off after being snowed in at their shop. Once they begin their day for just the two of them, they realize how needed it was.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana), Asra (The Arcana)/Reader
Kudos: 79





	Snow Days Together

Asra and I noticed right from the moment we got up in the morning that it was snowing hard. We watched the thick white flurries as we ate breakfast, and when Asra came in from lighting the lantern to signify the shop as open, he commented, “Wow, is it ever coming down out there.”

“Any idea when it’ll stop?” I asked, peering out the window with some concern at the several inches that had already built up. 

Asra shook his head. “Doesn’t show any signs of stopping anytime soon. Why don’t we head for the market to stock up a little and see if anyone else knows anything about the storm?”

“If you’re ready to brave the snow,” I replied with a smile, knowing Asra could never resist an adventure, even if that adventure was simply going out to town during a snowstorm. 

Asra smiled back. “Get bundled up, it is freezing out there.” 

Fifteen minutes later, we were exiting the shop, shielded against the snow and strong wind by several layers of thick fabrics. As we reached the road, I stumbled over a raised stone that was hidden under the snow. Asra tried to catch my arm, but he slipped on a patch of ice and we both tripped into the snowbanks that were piling up by the roadside. Asra bounced up, asking if I was alright, and was once again thrown off balance by the force of his own movements. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, wiping snow out of my eyes with wet gloves before getting to my feet and offering Asra a hand. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

Asra nodded and took my hand. We walked the rest of the way to the market glove-in-glove, laughing and teasing and balancing each other when we tripped. Most of the stalls were closed, likely related to the storm, but a familiar scent caught my nose and I turned to Asra, grinning. “You know what that smell is.” 

Asra shook his head playfully, letting me drag him over to the baker’s stall for pumpkin bread and hot tea. 

Warmed by the tea and with two loaves of fresh bread tucked into our bags, Asra and I headed out into the snow again, wishing the baker a good day as we left. We continued through the market, Asra teasing me for how quickly I hurried past the fortune teller’s booth (as usual). Unfortunately, when we arrived at the stall where we usually picked up the magical goods we were unable to gather for ourselves, it was closed. “All that for nothing,” Asra sighed, shaking his head. 

“Not nothing,” I reminded him, shaking the bag that contained our pumpkin bread with a smile, “If we go a little further, hopefully the cow-keeper’s stall is open and we can get some fresh butter to go with it.” 

Asra nodded. “And the candle shop is on the way, we can pick up some more candles. With all this snow, we’ll likely burn through a lot of what we have to keep things lit up.” 

And so we were off again, intertwined fingers going slightly numb despite the gloves we wore. I had to let go of Asra’s hand several times to adjust my scarf, the fabric over my mouth freezing from where my breath had dampened it. 

By the time we had gotten our candles and butter, we were fully aware that staying out this long had not been a good choice. 

Stomping his feet to restore some warmth to them, Asra reached out for my hand once again. I shifted the bag of bread to my other arm and linked his frozen fingers with mine. “At least we should be getting home quicker without the stops.”

Asra smiled. “Ever the optimist, you,” he said with a chuckle. 

I was quickly proven wrong. Getting home was even slower than getting out here had been. We had to trudge through snow that was nearly to our knees, and our stops became frequent as we had to let go of each other to blow hot air into our freezing hands and wipe blinding snow from our faces. 

We were both half frozen by the time we got back to the shop. Asra fumbled with the key for far longer than either of us enjoyed, and we stumbled messily inside once he got the door open. 

“Look at all this snow, you’d think we brought the storm in with us,” Asra joked as he regarded the floor, starting to peel off layers of snow-caked, frozen clothing. I simply nodded, shivering hard while I hurried to remove the cold coat I wore and replace it with the oversized, thick, heavy sweater Asra had made for me when the first winter after my amnesia came around. It always warmed both my heart and my body, but this time I still shivered as I curled up on a stack of pillows in our living room, pulling a blanket around myself. 

It was almost no time at all before Asra noticed my shaking and jumped almost immediately into his concerned state. In record speed I was being handed two more sweaters and a cup of steaming tea. “Thank you,” I said, chuckling slightly at his protectiveness, “Are you getting warm too?” 

He settled into the pile of pillows beside me, holding his own hot cup of tea and joining me under the blankets. “Certainly much warmer than you, you should have mentioned you were so cold!”

“And what would you have done out there on the road anyways? Probably taken off your own coat for me, because you’re foolish like that,” I smiled playfully at him, “I’ll be okay, Asra. You worry too much.” I laid my head on his shoulder.

Asra wrapped an arm around me and looked down at me with a caring look in his eyes. “You know why I worry so much about you?”

I perked up, always interested in listening to Asra talk, especially about how he saw our relationship. “Why?”

“Well, other than because I care about you, which is a reason you definitely already knew, I worry because… I’m scared of something happening to you. Especially if you got yourself into a situation where something happened and you needed me and I wasn’t there. I never want you to be in any situation where you feel like I abandoned you, or wasn’t there for you, or didn’t care enough, or—”

I cut him off with a finger to his lips. “Asra. You’re shaking, and nothing’s even wrong. Don’t work yourself up like that. I’m here, and I’m okay, and I would never think those things even if I wasn’t. Relax, alright? I have an idea. The storm is only getting worse. Why don’t you bring our bed down here where the fireplace is? I’ll make a fire, we can put out the lantern and close shop for the day—we wouldn’t have customers in this weather anyways—and spend the whole day together in our bed by the fire. Just you and I, taking a day off.” 

I watched as Asra nearly melted into a puddle at the suggestion. “That sounds… lovely. We both need a day off more than anything. Maybe this storm is a blessing, forcing us to rest like this.” 

Not quite an hour later, I had a crackling fire going in the fireplace and the lantern outside was stone cold. Asra had moved our bed downstairs with a little magic, placing it on the floor by the fireplace. I leaned up against Asra as we settled under the covers, finally starting to feel warm. Before either of us knew it, we were drifting off to sleep in each other’s warm embraces, our trek through the storm having thoroughly exhausted us both.

We woke up much later that day to find that the fire in the fireplace was completely dead, most of the candles had burnt to nothing, and most concerningly, there was snow everywhere and the shop was absolutely freezing cold. It took me a moment to register everything, and when I did I leapt out of bed and shook Asra’s shoulder until he realized something was amiss and roused himself. 

After a quick search of the shop, we realized that a window had been blown in by the winds outside, hence the snow indoors and cold temperature. Asra began searching for something to cover the window with, and eventually I watched him cringe as he hammered spare boards to the frame of the window. Asra had always prided himself on the beauty of his shop, and I knew it upset him to fix the window in such a way, however temporary of a solution it was. 

We swept all the snow into buckets. We wanted to open the door as little as possible, so we set all the buckets by the door and prepared to throw the snow out quickly. 

However, when Asra tried to shove the door open, it didn’t budge. So he pushed harder on it, and still nothing happened. “It’s either frozen shut or there’s so much snow outside it can’t open. Or both. Whatever the case, we’re snowed in.”

We moved the buckets over to sit by the stove. At least as they melted we’d have water available, since the well was outdoors. Asra lit the fire in the fireplace again to work on reheating the shop, while I replaced the candles that were too burnt to use and relit the ones that would last a little longer. Still freezing, Asra and I returned to the bed and snuggled together under the blankets. I locked up my muscles in a desperate attempt not to shiver, but Asra picked up on that as well. “You’re so tense, are you alright?”

I sighed and relaxed my body, starting to shiver rapidly. Asra nodded his understanding and grabbed one of the blankets, setting it near the fireplace for several minutes until it was warm. He wrapped it around my shoulders and I smiled thankfully. The shivering didn’t stop, and I groaned slightly as Asra entered protective mode once again. He began to ramble worriedly the way he always did, and I held a hand up to silence him. “Asra. You know what would be helpful right now?” 

He immediately perked up at the thought of a direct way to help me. “What?”

“Could you run a hot bath for me, please?” I gave him my sweetest pleading eyes, even though it was completely unnecessary. He was halfway out of the room before I finished my sentence. 

I was not expecting to walk into the bathroom and see a steaming bathtub full of flowers and scented with something sweet. “Wow, Asra… this is beautiful. Thank you.” I smiled at him, leaning up to my tiptoes to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “I know our tub is small, but you’re more than welcome to join me if you like.” 

He turned pink, his blush only increasing as I laughed and started removing my clothes for the bath. I slid into the hot water, deliberately letting out a low whine as I settled into the tub. “Come on in, Asra, the water’s lovely,” I said with a smirk, tilting my head up to see him across the room. 

I half expected him to get a nosebleed, his face was so red. I motioned ‘come here’ with two fingers, thoroughly enjoying flustering Asra like this. All my teasing worked, because he crossed the room so quickly I was sure he’d slip. He removed his clothes and left them in a heap next to my neatly folded ones, climbing into the tub along with me. I smiled and leaned forward to kiss him sweetly. 

More than one warming activity later, Asra and I were back in our soft bed, which was a lot warmer now that the fireplace had been lit for a little while. We were both getting hungry, but neither of us wanted to cook anything, so we ate through the two pumpkin loaves covered in all the different flavours of butter we had bought to try out. By the time the food was gone, we both agreed that either the honey butter or the spiced one were the best choices for pumpkin bread. 

We brushed a few orange-toned breadcrumbs off the blankets and snuggled together once again. It was getting late already. We could see the windows moving from a white-out of snow to a dark grey as the sky turned black. I muffled a yawn behind one hand, not wanting our day off to be over just yet, but Asra caught it the way he did everything. “Getting sleepy?” he asked playfully, knowing I would argue with him.

Which of course he was correct about. Even as I snuggled closer to his chest and fought back another yawn, I shook my head and replied, “Nope. Just warm and cozy.”

“Come on,” Asra smiled sweetly, “You need to sleep. We both do. What’s the point of a comfortable day off if we don’t finish it with a good night of sleep?”

I looked up at him with a pout. “But if we go to sleep our day together will be over… I don’t want it to end.”

“Aw,” Asra hugged me tightly. “Don’t worry. We definitely need to make this a habit. How about from now on, we close up completely once a week and spend a day together? Either here or going out somewhere, but a day just for us.” 

I smiled. “I love that idea.” I yawned again, this time unrestrained. “Alright, I guess we should get to sleep. Goodnight, Asra. Thank you for agreeing to this day together. It was perfect.”

Asra smiled back. “Goodnight, and thank you for suggesting it. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I rested my head against his chest and fell asleep there, breathing in his familiar and comforting scent. 

We woke well after sunrise the next day. The storm had ceased and the sun was coming through the windows once again. Well, all but the window that was boarded up. Asra and I took our time for once, laying in bed together for awhile before getting up. Over the course of the next two hours we returned the bed upstairs, got dressed for the day, and ate breakfast. Then it was time to head out yet again. There was a lot of snow shovelling to do, the broken window needed new glass, and we planned to walk as far as we could to help out others. There was a big day ahead of us, but we were well rested and with Asra by my side, I always felt like I could accomplish anything.


End file.
